The group update email part one..

Hi all,

You know that when I set out on my little adventure I promised myself that I would make sure that I sent an email home to everyone to let them know how I am doing all the time.. Today I realised that I have only sent one, even though I went to Vegas a month ago and had the holiday of a lifetime, I never got around to sending the bloody email... so here it is.

Well, let me tell you about Vegas... Hang on, can’t remember if I told you the story that leads up to Vegas, and where I live in Canada. About ten or so years ago, before I decided to play cops and robbers, I got an email from a lady named Mykal. It was not intended for me but somehow made it to my inbox anyway. I wrote back to her telling her that she sent it to the wrong person and somehow we managed to stay in touch... Pen pals in the world of the internet. Mykal was a lot better at it than I was and every year at Christmas, my mum and I used to look forward to receiving mail from Illinois about the shenanigans that Mykal and her growing family got up to. Well when I decided to come play in Canada I told Mykal and she emailed all her contacts in Canada to see if any crazy person had a room to rent.. sure enough, that is how I found Kelly and ended up in a town called Brandon, Manitoba. Mykal and I decided that once I was in Canada we should finally meet and somehow Vegas came up! So it was all booked. Mykal was going for four days and for some stupid reason it was cheaper for me to go for a week so I had a couple of extra days alone there before she got there. So off to Winnipeg I went to catch yet another flight. The road trip to Winnipeg from Brandon is similar to licking cement... you would never do it for fun, only if you were forced to. I had a layover in Minneapolis which makes Melbourne Airport look like a tin shed. I swear to god you would need four days to walk through all the shops in that airport. I finally found my terminal and sat down to play on computer like the good little nerd I can be when I somehow got involved in a conversation with three different groups of people.. all of which were going to Vegas. Mike and Colleen were from Minnesota and off to Vegas to look at the pretty lights too and since we were on the same flight we ended up chatting through most of it. Got to Vegas and ended up seeing the strip for the first time with them too... and Hoover Dam. Word of advice, never go to a ridiculously high dam with a hangover. Can’t tell you what it was like to look down.

Vegas was an adventure that I don’t think can ever be explained on an email. The view from my fairy princess room was spectacular. I have photos but a lot of blurry. I seriously think it is because the automatic focus on a camera does not know where to focus on. Anyway, a couple of days later, I stood outside the hotel waiting for Mykal and her partner Jason to arrive, I waited and waited and waited until a massive truck pulled up in front of me and in that two seconds Mykal and Jason got out of their cab and walked into the other door because I was hidden behind the truck. Idiots.

I finally met here and I know that I probably do but I felt like I already knew her so well. It was just fantastic to put it all together and know that the person I had been writing to all these years wasn’t a complete nut bag (she still is part one though). Other than 8 hours of hell (which shall never been spoken about but always laughed about) and a photo of a Pepsi machine that stole her two dollars, I had a spectacular time with Mykal and Jason. We went and saw Mystere from Cirque du Soliel. For those that truly know me, you will be stunned by this, I was SPEECHLESS! The skill and the skill and the skill and the agility!! Of course they asked me to be in the performance but I didn’t want Mykal and Jason to be left alone... He he who am I kidding! It hurt my stomach muscles just watching them!

You want to know something stupid, every day I carried a sign around that said “For Gracie” because I know that a dear friend of mine loves Elvis and I was determined to get a photo with Elvis holding that sign to send to her. EVERY DAY I CARRIED IT!!!! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a photo of Elvis in Vegas! Finally on my last day!